Is There an American Socialist Tradition? Possibly, but it is Not the one today’s Left Celebrates

Capitalism, Sklar writes, “needs socialism for stability, and socialism needs capitalism for the wealth creation that generates and supports an ever expanding equalitarianism and noncapitalist investment and labor activity.” It is not antithetical to real liberal democracy, and is in fact in permanent opposition to the statism of the Left today and its supporters. So as Sklar sees things, the entire American system, including both of our major political parties, have embraced this symbiotic relationship, and in general, have moved to the left. “In the 1990s,” he argues, “President Clinton and Speaker Newt Gingrich have been the master leaders of this bipartisan leftward shift in the U.S. political spectrum and political culture.”

Socialism, then, is not the kind of government ownership, state command and managerial authoritarian systems most people call socialism, run by a vanguard political party and a group of bureaucratic statist managers — such as those now called for to administer ObamaCare by the new Independent Payment Advisory Boards that the President now calls for and that Stanley Kurtz has dissected in an important analysis at NRO’s The Corner. Indeed, Sklar now agrees with the essence of Kurtz’s views, but instead of calling Obama and his programs those of stealth socialism, as does Stanley Kurtz, he refers to Obama as a politician of the far radical fringe that acts in a Leninist, rather than socialist, fashion.

Sklar’s article is very complicated and deserves close, serious reading, and cannot be adequately summed up any more than I have attempted above. But I should note that his work has had a serious impact, and even the highly respected major conservative constitutional theorist John Yoo, who now teaches law at Stanford University, has used and assigned Sklar’s readings in his classes. In a review of one of his books for The American Journal of Legal History, Thomas K. McCraw of the Harvard Business School called Sklar’s work “a masterpiece that places us all in his debt.”

And last June, National Review’s Jonah Goldberg, author of the best-selling Liberal Fascism, urged his readers to also take a careful look at Sklar’s theories. He cites a blog post of mine written a year ago, in which I noted that Sklar believes that Obama will make “central to his presidency” what he calls “proto-statist structures characteristic of fascist politics — that is, ‘social service’ political organizations operating extra-electorally and also capable of electoral engagement,” that will lead to “party-state systems…in which the party is the state.” Thus, he notes that during the campaign, Obama favored armed public service groups that could be used for homeland security, that would tie leadership bureaucracies to him through the unions and groups like ACORN.

More recently, Sklar has written a series of papers he has been circulating on ObamaCare, in which he dissects the various proposals of it supporters as favoring medical care as “an instrument of partisan politics, ideological prescription … interest-group/activist pressures, and class/ethnic/racial/preference and deprivation … in short, social injustice.” The program, he argues, is “retrogressive and reactionary … compatible with a state-capitalist or state-socialist standpoint.” Although those who favor ObamaCare think of themselves as leftist representatives of the poor and the people, Sklar writes that the program they propose imposes “a scarcity regime upon an abundance capacity,” spreading around “squalor and inequality.” Moreover, he develops a constitutional analysis in which he argues that the health care law “may be found to violate the constitutionally protected rights of life, liberty, property, and privacy, as well as the constitutional division and limitation of powers among the federal and state governments,” and he declares it unconstitutional in its totality.

28 Comments, 15 Threads

1.
Chris Bolts

Mr. Radosh, I greatly appreciate your work and no doubt believe that Mr. Sklar has given thoughtful analysis to the relationship between capitalism and socialism. However, the question I will pose to both of you is isn’t what Mr. Sklar proposes is what we have now? Has the fusion of socialism with capitalism caused stability? Has the wealth created by capitalism helped keep socialism in check? We all know the answer to these questions and the fallout from trying to fuse socialism and capitalism is playing out before us.

I say to you both that the problem with socialism is that it will always end up thuggish and antithetical to liberty and freedom. Indeed, the problem with socialism is who gets to decide and how do they decide it? Anywhere that socialism has been tried it has led to ruin.

Mr. Sklar sounds as though he is in the same vein as Christopher Hitchens and Walter Russell Mead. These men recognize the contradictions in their beliefs, but they cannot bring themselves to fully refudiate what it is they believe. Capitalism and socialism are NOT compatible; socialism needs capitalism far more than what capitalism needs socialism. Stability is something that mankind should never seek as it is as utopian as the idea that we can eliminate poverty or cure sickness. All three men understand this, and are effective at recognizing the evil that Mr. Nichols actually supports, but any hint of socialism invading capitalism inevitably leads us back to where we are.

Just to introduce George Orwell into this, he recognized the same contradictions and dangers of socialism that Mr. Sklar has. He too had a tough time letting go of his belief in socialism. However, George Orwell has been one of the strongest voices against the dangers of communism and state-managed socialism. I am glad that we have another Orwell in our time that we can all learn from in Martin Sklar.

The only thing that concerns me – and confuses me – is that we’re being introduced to yet another set of labels. I already have trouble figuring out who/what is a “socialist” or a “progressive” or a “liberal” or a “capitalist” or a “conservative.” In this article, what does it mean to say that liberals and conservatives have both shifted “toward the left?” What is “the left?” The definitions seem to shift all the time. Politicians and theorists use them as camouflage – radical socialists claiming they’re mainstream liberals, etc. And now Sklar is redefining “socialism” and “capitalism?” It’s giving me a headache.

I oppose Obama’s health care plan. I do not oppose the fire department or public schools. So – does that make me a capitalist, a socialist, a liberal, or a conservative? And does it really matter?

An unduly harsh assesment of an honest question from Bugs, dont you think?

Opposing the healthcare plan because its a finacial and administarive monstrocity of untold billions and a virtually unfathomable 1000+ pages of new rules does not make one “unprincipled” for, at the same time, wanting a local Fire Department to be on call while they sleep.

We DO pay taxess for a REASON you know.

Likewise, Public Schools a necessity….but for the criminality of the Teachers Unions laundering tax funded bribes through Democrat campaign donations, it could acually work.

We are a prosperous enough nation to have a fair, reasonable tax code to support decent, efficient services…but only if politicians and public unions werent so corrupt, and leftist

I think I antagonized TL and gave others the wrong idea when I mentioned public schools. I just grabbed that off the top of my head as an example of “services provided by government and paid for by our taxes.” Didn’t intent to start a holy war.

Public schools are a good thing. The way they’re currently run is pretty bad.

Education is where the marxist/leninist virus takes hold. The public school systems began, slowly and surely, immediately after WWI to inculcate the statist thought and practice into the minds of our students/ By the 1930s, the campuses of many of our universities were peopled with marxist professors, as were our governments, municipal, state and federal. An easy history to verify. FDR’s and Truman’s administrations were rife with communists.

Bugs, as a general rule the terms left and right differ depending upon the political system in which they are employed. Left and right don’t mean the same thing in Britain as they do here, or in Pakistan, India, or any other country. The terms “hard left” and “hard right,” often used here, have no agreed-upon meaning at all. They are demeaning terms used by both sides.

In the U.S. today the left includes wacko-environmentalists, PETA activists, the Animal Liberation Front, Fabian Socialists, Marxist Socialists, and Fascists, and most other (but not all) Statists. Obama’s regime is filled with 1960s Saul Alinsky Marxist radicals. He and Hillary, for example, are Alinsky accolytes. The right today consists of Conservatives dedicated to the founding principles, but also of small para-military survivalist types of groups. (At least the left always tries to paint the right with that brush.) People who call themselves moderates or independents and seek to position themselves between left and right will slide in and out of the left or right, depending on issues and perceived self interest.

In 1840 the Whigs and in 1860 the Republicans took positions that many of today’s leftists would be comfortable with, specifically an overwhelmingly powerful central national government, with the power to dictate to states. The Democrats of those years more closely resembled today’s Conservative right.

The switcheroo, where today’s Democrats became composed of Statists of every variety, occurred when the 1960s radicals (Hillary, Julian Bond, Bill Ayers and others) realized that to achieve power they would have to infiltrate a political party. Since the Democrat Party had been friendly to socialists and communists for at least forty years, that was the party they infiltrated and took over. Conservatives realized the same thing and have been trying to gain control of the Republican Party since that time, too.

Old line Democrats such as Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson realized that they could buy votes with social programs, putting (for example) Social Security recipients and Negroes virtually in their pockets.

Today the “left” indicates a preference for statism, a controlling central government, and contempt for the U.S. Constitution. The “right” indicates a preference for federalism, a small central national government, and adherence to the U.S. Constitution and reverance for it.

That was the best article I have read that explains exactly how I feel! I’m not a writter but that was supurb. I will pass it around at our next tea party meeting plus I will mail it to all my friends.

You and Glenn Beck need to get together and start a program where every college across the country should here you’re message. Every PtA meeting should here how they are indoctrinating our children. When did Americans get so stupid! I’m just hoping we are not too late. I saw right through this man from the beginning but I know people that think he is wonderful. I’m working on them. Did you see how he is using facebook to his advantage?

Even American socialist condemn Obama`s demagogy.Mr Radosh explains well as the slogans of the next “Great society” can be the cover of the creation of party-state combination for extra power acquisition, and the American constitution is the real barier for social demagogs.Big social programs must be not the results of party theorists but the fruit of nation- wide discussion and consensus.It`s evident that the “socialism” has nothing in common with the procedure described.

Viewing this from a more biologic perspective, we have symbiotic, parasitic, and collaborative relationships which are ill defined as to their boundaries. In the dynamic capacities of a large organism, all relationships must exist for the benefit (evolution) of the whole. Degeneration (or crime) predominates when one of the principles exceeds its boundaries.
When one gives one’s coat to the poor, there is a difference from when one’s coat is given to the poor.

The ultimate goal in their lives is to have others follow you [the useful idiots] in the belief that it is for the good of all mankind and that they have found the way to world harmony. How those goals are achieved does not matter [executive orders and policy czars], just that they are, and that it is perceived that are achieved in the most respectable and honorable of ways. All your short comings and mistakes can simple be brushed aside by using the Bush syndrome [blame it on Bush]. Failure is not proof that something doesn’t work [the old Soviet Union]. In fact failures of any kind can always be explained away by the use of false information, [as in global warming] and backed up by your own academic experts. The most compelling sign of a socialist is when they end a discussion with, well — that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

sure, because a free market society creates wealth unknown in any other system the government’s intrusion can be nearly painless in the beginning but once it finds a host it will feed until the host is dead, the parasite explodes under its own engorgement, or the host picks it off and kills it

multinationals exist because governments intrusion into the free market destroys the proverbial “little guy” from its onerous regulations

government intervention not only fosters giant multinationals but the crony cozy “capitalism” between government and “Big Business” is inevitable and the ruination is guaranteed

there is no bargaining over our principles
a free market society with a government existing only within it’s legitimately limited constraints nurses the conditions on our planet that gives the most freedom and wealth to an individual.

Parasitic opportunism upon the back of the “already” successful. Socialists and politicians. They sit back, and wait for an industry to be created, for a market to soar, for a civilization to succeed, THEN they step in and say “hey now, we all need some of that”

No heavy lifting involved….just wait for the next FANTASTIC CAPITALIST SUCCESS STORY to become reality, wait for the next visionary to bust outside the box, and pounce, demanding a “fair share” from these now uber wealthy capitalists, as if they just woke up one day and decided to printed all that money, from dirt…

Think, if youre old enough, of the days before PC’s & cell phones. Before air-bags and GPS. Men like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are thought of as big Philanthropists today, and expected to support and sustain a lot of charitable enterprises…but where DID all that money come from?.

Where WERE the Needy Socialists and demanding Politicians when they were writing code, mining for rare earth elements, designing the molds, clamps, boards, lenses, glass and plastic pieces to fit together and FUNCTION, in a new and revolutionary ways so visionary, that people would line up by the millions and gladly BUY THEM FOR MORE THAN THEY COST TO PRODUCE?

If there is no successful MANUFACTURED PRODUCTS TO SELL, where WOULD all those CHARITY DOLLARS COME FROM?

Oh, thats right, Politicians and Socialists dont do details. None of them are very mechanically inclined….wrench?..whats a wrench? Theyre not around for the technical brainstorming, the design, the investments, and certainly not the RISK.

They only come in at the end, after a thousand failures, and the heartache and loss associated with reaching for a prize with your own bare hands, and your own money, is suffered by many, and accomplished by a few. They show up at the end, to Cherry Pick among the winners, as if they had some influence on the results.

They show up for the big meeting, the catered luncheon, the tour, and the photo-op. Always standing by, in their self inflated arrogance, ready to be the essential dispenser of societies “fair share” of someone else’s success.

Of course you are SO WRONG! There is definitely a socialist tradition in America. If you don’t believe it then try to explain why the demos and repubs are always arguing about the same things. On the other hand there is a way to get off that field. If Sarbanes-Oxley is good for business it is good for government. If 1099-MISC and W-2′s are good for income then 1099-GOV is good for ‘income, redistributed’. If we are serious about financial credibility then we quit arguing about how much ghost money is on the ground and pass a Balanced Budget Amendment which also requires our elected employees must cast a yea or nay vote for any expenditures…or be held in contempt of Congress.

In addition to all you have written, and it is considerable, the problem for Conservatives, and an aiding current that runs very deep alongside the agenda of the Democratic Party are two entities that amount to almost a de facto coup d’etat against lawful and Constitutional liberty.

One is a heavily layered and stultifying career bureaucracy whose enormity sets up an ‘us versus them’ mentality. The public becomes a chicken to be plucked but worse, the very nature of this bureaucracy smothers us like a blanket philosophically and financially because of its tendency to protect itself against and foresee law suits and at the same time protect the public from harm; protecting itself and the public become twin engines that fuel and serve one the other; the problem is that ‘they’ become the public.

This bureaucracy grows larger and larger, brooks no dissent and brings us all within itself. Our nation continues to consolidate its gains decades after its borders have been defined and now a form of imperialism and colonialism has been visited on its own people.

We have come a long way from getting together to build and equip a school house. Also, and not the least of this effect, is the ability to ignore law by, ironically, using complex psuedo-legal frameworks to subject us all to rules that inhibit our freedom. Workarounds to the Freedom of Information Act are already in place and I cannot videotape a police officer but he can perhaps copy all the information from my cell phone because I have a tail light out. I don’t have the money or time to legally challenge whether this is right or wrong and if I challenge this I will sit in jail, losing more time and money.

The second and most important, is the very nature of the lasting effects and perceptions that are the result of the cultural revolution which, like a bureaucracy, nicely and unwittingly set up and serve the same ends as the Democratic Party envisions as its goals.

Broad generalizations of what it means to be ‘fair’ or a ‘real’ American are common in film, music and TV and they are not Conservative principles or based in reality but in faith and Jim Crow guilt; whatever they are it is a form of indoctrination that goes far beyond a normal community desire to conform because one is made to conform. Childish stereotypes of political correctness dispense morality to skin color, scale of disenfranchisement and ones workplace and has the effect of us all calling each other ‘comrade’ or ‘citizen’.

The law giveth and the law taketh away and our courts see what it wants to see and it obeys its own legal imperatives only when they do not conflict with the cultural zeitgeist that places, for example, illegal immigrant minorities at the top of a reverse food chain. Oaths of office by politicians follow this rule as well as also plainly shown by sanctuary cities and policies.

Our population is now so large and legal precedents so complex that Federal judges can literally gerrymander words as they see fit along with foreign nationals to follow cultural necessity as in the case of the AZ immigration bill. Law always follows culture but in this case it has morphed into us being legally MADE to follow culture from which the law then emerges anew, an approved culture that stands over and surveys us.

This natural intertwining of law and culture has turned into a monstrous version of itself and one that clings to its rules even to the point of not protecting the very people who created it from massive immigration.

That monstrous bureaucracy is not threatened by a replacement of the original creators of itself by the Third World because it has culturally and legally turned its back on the principles that created America as being racist and exploitative; it believes it can survive without empiricism and on its own momentum and its misplaced faith in the ideals that posit a distorted and historically cheapened version of the phrase ‘we are all created equal’. The legal/bureaucratic/cultural zeitgeist that are the trio underlying the Democratic Party and its socialist values believe everyone in the whole world is an American and that the exceptionalism in front of their very eyes and written plain in history books and in statistics is a falsehood and a myth, to be shunned and done away with.

Orwell’s nightmare has crept upon us for the rather simplistic reason that the particulars are different in Orwell’s story and that is what we tend to see, the literal, rather than the overarching premise that underlies a real ability to see and which is the real enabler of Socialism and not its pedantry and dogma. Without that overarching perception that is the basis of the American zeitgeist today, Socialism has no car to ride in.

We thought that if we guarded against the particulars and dogmatic pedantry written down in manifestos that we would be safe – we were wrong because we were blindsided from the very place we least expected a form of fascism to emerge but were warned about by some – the meek, the environmentalists, the animal rights activists, the peaceniks, the anti-racists, the gay lobby – in short, the liberal, progressive political Left.

The meek have inherited the Earth, at least the West and certainly America and it has been in play for a long time now. Obama and his ilk have simply focused a lens on our broken system and exploited it along its weakest seams which is establishment law that has been subverted from within by a new generation that saw that a true revolution is best done from within and like a revolution it does not respect the institutions but uses them while breaking them to its will to further what they see as right and the law can come along or not as it pleases.

With all the labels we have bruited about and guarded against, it is the very semantically clever socialism that has no name that has done us in. The country’s philosophical infrastructure is steeped and indoctrinated with it from top to bottom. What do you call it when the repeal of the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act cannot even be breathed by one single politician in this country or even by those politicians most ardent supporters? We have been undone.

Nicely done, but are you not acknowledging that the meek, dark forces have evolved more effectively than have “strong” “good” guys (or however you would choose to describe them)? This is what civilization now means; as always, one has to adapt to one’s environment. Much of what I read here seems to be a wail or a curse that things have changed.

It seems to me that one can critique the excesses and win elections when lefties over-reach, or the public is just discouraged by something, but in this climate, a return to exceptionalism would be dangerous, as in how exceptional Hitler convinced the Germans that they were. We didn’t fight them because we thought we were exceptional, but because it seemed like it had to be done and the exceptional Japanese attacked us.

Does exceptionalism imply that rules that apply to the rest of the world do not apply to us, because we are us? Where would exceptionalism get us right now?

A perfect example is Wisconsin with all the battles against unions. The public elects a GOP government for the first time in like forever, and then months later is revulsed by the union-busting. Just look at the recall elections and Walker’s approval rating. It seems that whenever the left overreaches, they get thrown out only to be disgusted by the GOP if they dare to actually reform anything. I don’t get it.

Surely “exceptionalism” is not meant to express the idea that Americans are superior beings. America’s constitutional republic, as originally formed, was exceptional for the liberty it allowed to its citizens. Quite ordinary people — energized by the knowledge that they were free to pursue their own interests within the constraints of law — created an even more exceptional country. It’s imperative that we return to constitutional government.

Hitler caused the suffering he did not because he convinced the Germans and Austrians they were exceptional but because he had absolute power. He acquired that power long before he began flattering the people.

Fascinating piece. Most of the comments are insightful. Many are worried at the movement toward the centralized, command and control collective Statism that we are intuiting but can’t quite name. The meaning of words has become very imprecise which makes it difficult, for a nonexpert, to analyze.

Like I said a while back: my revolution has been stolen!!! The concept of a healthy tension between making and taking has been skewed in favor of taking and destroying. enough already!! stop the giveaways!!!! encourage pride and honest work!!!

Socialism in America dates back to the Plymouth Plantation. The year 1623, when the Communitie of Common Wealth almost doomed them, as William Bradford points out. It appears the young and energetic decided to relax and grow only enough to feed themselves. They learned their lesson the hard way. Why do we have to learn this the same way?